Vectrex related questions

[joeybastard]

After wanting one for 20 years, I got a Vectrex off of eBay last week for $53. Not bad for what was described although it was in much worse shape than described so I think I got hosed a little. Anyway, after cleaning it up inside and out, gluing some of the screw posts and reseating the case, all is well and it works great.

 

Here's the questions:

1. There is the brightness knob on the back of the unit and it works fine. I can get a very nice bright picture before the dot in the middle appears. My question is, if I keep it very bright, does it wear more on the monitor? I'd rather live it with a little less bright that kill this thing early.

 

2. I just ordered a VecFlash too. How many games can it hold at one time? Anything special I should know about this thing?

 

3. Do vector monitor screens require any different kind of cleaning than a raster monitor screen?

[Mayhem]

1) The brighter you have it, the more likely any screen burn will occur if you leave it static for long enough. Still, it doesn't need to be that bright imo.

 

2) 16 banks of 32k each.

 

3) Not that I know of.

[joeybastard]

Ok thanks but since I'm not terribly bright, number 2 doesn't mean much to me. Let's say the games were 4K each. Does that mean 8 games would fit into each of the 16 banks or is it only 1 rom per bank but it can be up to 32K?

[Ze_ro]

I'm pretty sure you can only have one game per bank... so that would mean a maximum of 16 games regardless of their size (Although they can't be larger than 32K).

 

And no, there is no difference in cleaning a vector monitor... the only differences between raster and vector monitors are on the inside.

 

It's probably a bad idea to keep the brightness cranked all the way up, if only because when the beam is more intense, the graphics tends to blur more. I keep mine relatively low, resulting in a sharper picture. The whole advantage of having a vector monitor is having perfectly straight lines after all.

 

--Zero

[Mayhem]

As what Zero said... there are 16 banks of memory available, each can hold one file of up to 32K. So that covers almost every game released (apart from a couple of John Dondzila's releases).

[+uosipa llamxew]

Some game ROMs must be "patched" in order to work with the VecFlash (Thrust stands out in my mind). The older version of the VecFlash does this automatically. VecFlash_38400.zip

 

Long filenames will mess up the VecFlash menu. If, by chance, you accidentally mess up the menu (as I did), you'll need to replace your vfm.bin, rename the ROMS/shorten the filenames, and download them into your VecFlash again.

 

 

 

IIRC, there are 16 banks, but one must be reserved for the VecFlash menu. Alex has compiled some 4k ROM packs. These will take one bank each, but have multiple games on them. It is rumored that he has some 8k packs in the works as well!

 

My VecFlash is currently packed with:

 

Gravitrex

Moon Lander

Omega Chase

Protector / Y*A*S*I

Repulse

Scramble

Solar Quest

Spike

Star Castle

StarFire

StarTrek

Thrust

Web Wars

Wormhole

Edited December 9, 2005 by mojofltr

[joeybastard]

Ok that makes more sense to this layman, thanks

[Richard H.]

Long filenames will mess up the VecFlash menu

I'm going to fix that over the weekend (on the new driver).

 

(BTW 12 characters is the maximum for the menu entries)

[Richard H.]

Here is the updated version of the driver (which now automatically trims the filenames).